Chapter 8
Vivi
SUNDAY MORNING brOUGHT church with the extended family.
Aunts, uncles, cousins—everyone surrounded the king and prayed for forgiveness.
His. Our own. Sins bled from the walls in a steady drip, drip, drip, yet we filled half the pews at Sacred Heart to pay our penance, then we’d walk away free to begin again.
Though there were a hundred Cabellos, I was stuck next to Sofia, who pursed her lips and refused to look at me.
Not even during the peace offering. She kissed the cheek of every person in a fifty-foot radius, then turned her nose when I offered mine.
Cabellos were hard to forgive, even harder at forgiving even the slightest insult, and Sofia was still perturbed about the attention I received at the initiation ceremony.
Before Father Zanetti said the final prayer, she slipped from her seat.
A blasphemy I wasn’t willing to commit in order to follow.
She walked out with Tommy, her personal guard, and a distant cousin twice removed on Zia Toni’s side, which meant he wasn’t blood.
But he’d been with the family forever, and Sofia for years.
I secretly thought he fed her petulance in the hopes she would see him. But Tommy’s pain was also mine.
I was invisible, even when I wanted to be seen.
Specifically, I sought the interest of a newly minted made man, without any idea of how to go about the endeavor.
The word seduction wasn’t in my vocabulary.
Awkward was. Difficult, too. Neither of which was the key to a man’s…
what? Heart? Certainly not that. Love didn’t exist in the Cosa Nostra.
Betrayal did. Violence was a staple. But beyond the red stain of death, there was heat and passion, and I’d witnessed a moment when Luca’s chilling exterior melted under my fingers.
My breath shook through my lungs just thinking about him. As though Mama guessed my impure thoughts, she tucked my hand in hers while we stood to watch the recession. When mass was over, her eyes lit with mischief, and she leaned over to whisper in my ear. “You have ten minutes. Use them wisely.”
I wove through the lingering parishioners to the front doors, where I pushed the hefty wood with a grunt, then sighed as sunlight blinded my escape. It was a beautiful summer day. The breeze was warm, but it brought a chilly apprehension I couldn’t shake off while walking down the church steps.
A line of black SUVs waited for the family.
Sofia, in her red dress, stood on the sidewalk before the largest one.
The sweater she’d worn in church had disappeared, leaving her boobs on display under a thin layer of silk.
A strap slipped from her shoulder, and she left it there, simply smiling and carrying on, as if she wasn’t indecent in front of two men.
Tommy stayed just behind her. The angry, red glare at the end of his cigarette flared while his gaze spit hostility at Luca.
Sleek frame. Broad shoulders. Blue eyes hidden by the same sunglasses every soldier wore to mask their feelings.
Yet the sharp edges of his jaw were relaxed while guarding Father’s truck, and as he looked at Sofia.
Envy stabbed into my gut, and for a solid sixty seconds, I hated my cousin.
I hated her beauty and sexy clothes, and the ease with which she flirted.
Mostly, I hated how she had Tommy wrapped around her finger, yet she pursued the man who tempted me.
I breathed through the uncomfortable and completely irrational jealousy.
Luca wasn’t mine. But my throat still burned from the scrape of his teeth, like he’d tattooed his name on my skin. With his hands on me, I’d never felt so alive. Not even my thumping heart in contrast to the silent, sightless, dirty fed with blood pooling by his feet.
God. This life was insane. It was also the only one I’d ever have, and I wanted to squeeze out an ounce of happiness from somewhere in the midst of darkness.
But that damn wind blew the tension my way, and I stumbled over my feet, announcing my arrival with an unladylike grunt.
Neither of them cared to acknowledge my presence, sparking the fire in my stomach.
“A gentleman would apologize.” Sofia’s tone was light, teasing, and fuel for my anger.
“You’ll be dust and bones before you’ll get an apology from him,” I mumbled, brushing by.
“Shut up, Vivienne. I wasn’t talking to you.”
“So I noticed.”
“What’d you say?”
I spun toward her, the sun hot and cruel on my back.
A reminder that I didn’t have her olive skin and long limbs.
What I had was an ill-fitting Salvation Army cast-off because I refused to spend Vigo’s dirty money on expensive things.
I wished I’d borrowed something from Mama to bolster my confidence.
I lifted my chin instead. “I said don’t hold your breath. You assume Luca’s a gentleman, and I think we can safely say that’s up for interpretation.”
I didn’t dare look at him, but his consideration was like a stroke of his fingers along my collarbone.
My body remembered what they felt like, and my heart did too, taking up that same thumping melody as it did when he held me.
I liked the feeling. And I liked the recipe for his attention—sarcasm, irritation, and a dash of disrespect.
I smiled while making note of the combination.
“How would you know he’s not—”
“A gentleman?” I laughed.
Sofia’s eyes narrowed, as if she didn’t find it amusing, and the laughter hitched on the mistake stuck in my throat.
Luca touched me at the ceremony, a line that shouldn’t have been crossed without a vow binding us together.
A line that could get him into a lot of trouble with my father.
But I wanted what was on the other side of that crossed-line, like an alcoholic wanted their next drink, so I said the first thing that popped into my mind.
“What are you still doing here, anyway? I thought you had a Narcotics Anonymous meeting right after mass.”
She blanched.
The deflection was shitty. A payback for the many times she’d made me feel small but hurting her only soured my stomach. “I’m sorry, Sof—”
She pushed my shoulder, and I staggered into Tommy’s chest.
“Cagna.” Sofia poked again, driving out my breath instead of a renewed apology.
“What’d you do, Vivienne? Did you throw yourself on him and beg him to make the little mouse feel good when no other man was interested?
Huh? Did you pant and plead, and offer to suck him off?
Yeah? Yeah, you did. Piccola puttana sporca. ”
“Stop it.” I shook my head, shaking off the curses she only ever said in Italian. Sharp words in a pretty language always sliced clean through. “Just stop, Sofia. I’m sorry. For everything, just please don’t.”
“Can’t take it but can give it. They have a word for that, cugina, but I have something else.”
Her fist reared back, and before I could flinch, Luca had her wrist.
“Enough.”
His command brought a huff of Tommy’s breath, smoke and ashes, and a deafening bellow that followed. “You’ll let her go if you want to live.”
Sofia glanced at Luca’s fingers on her skin, then at me.
Her curling smile was feral, mean and cruel.
A hot, oppressive moment passed before she leaned against him, rubbing like a cat scratching its back.
Rubbing all over him. All over Luca, whose expression never changed because he didn’t care about anything—or anyone.
Cazzo di figa.
“Is this what you begged for?” she spat. “Yeah? Yeah, you did. But he denied you. He denied you because you’re small and ugly. But this, Vivienne, this is what a woman looks like pressed against a man.”
Tommy growled, drowning out the low hum of New York life—car doors slamming, distant horns, and passing chatter. But the restless breeze wouldn’t blow over, leaving a storm cloud of anxiety hovering above us.
A heavy arm shot around my chest.
My breath caught.
Tommy’s Glock rose, centering on Luca’s forehead. “Hands off.”
Shouts rang out. Jesus called for peace. Luca pushed Sofia aside, and then he mirrored Tommy’s stance. Ten other guards did the same, with me stuck in the middle of the standoff, clawing at Tommy’s intractable hold.
“Release her.” Luca exuded peace and serenity—just another day on the job—but his tenor vibrated with the kind of fury that chattered teeth and shook shoulders.
“If you’re such a good shot, why should I? Huh? Afraid you’ll hit the boss’ daughter? Yeah, schifoso, nessun buon bastardo.”
He jerked me in front of him as if I were a shield, centered and staring into the long barrel of Luca’s silencer.
“I’m not playing with you. Put the gun down.
” Luca’s voice was lost in the pounding of my pulse.
A thundering drip, drip, drip, like the dirty fed’s blood, and all I saw was his lifeless eyes and slumped form.
Is this what the end felt like? Weightless and free, numb, but for the rattling echo of red splattering in staccato drops into a pool on the concrete.
Zia Beatrice gasped. Mama cried my name.
“Tommy,” Zio snapped from behind. “Drop your weapon.”
But the fight was in front of him, with Luca, who held his pistol and his tone steady. “Last chance.”
“You touch my woman, and there are consequences.”
Luca removed his sunglasses. Tommy shook. His hand faltered, then the weapon steadied. I focused on my thundering pulse and Luca’s Adam’s apple bobbing a steady cadence above his black tie, the knot neat and pristine.
“Lascia cadere la pistola, Tomasso,” Vigo barked. “You’ve upset my wife.”
“This guy’s got a problem with his hands, boss. I’m just teaching him a lesson.”
Tommy’s defense wavered against my spine, but that wasn’t it. That wasn’t it at all. This business was because Sofia wanted the wrong man, and Tommy couldn’t live with the truth.
The air sizzled with the zipping energy just before a lightning strike.
Tommy tensed.